


Oasis

by faithlessone



Series: Stormheart - (M!Trevelyan/Cassandra) [4]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: F/M, I spy with my little eye, The Forbidden Oasis, brennan is a darling disaster boi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-04
Updated: 2020-12-04
Packaged: 2021-03-09 17:48:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,808
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27880254
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/faithlessone/pseuds/faithlessone
Summary: Trevelyan gets them lost in the Forbidden Oasis. Cassandra is... not pleased.
Relationships: Cassandra Pentaghast/Male Trevelyan, Male Inquisitor/Cassandra Pentaghast
Series: Stormheart - (M!Trevelyan/Cassandra) [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1756030
Comments: 9
Kudos: 14





	Oasis

**Author's Note:**

> Hi, I'm back!! Happy DA Day!!!!
> 
> Going back in time a bit for this one, to the early days, when Brennan was even more of a disaster and Cassandra barely tolerated him. Hope you enjoy!!

“I think… I think we’re lost.”

Trevelyan’s words come as little surprise. They have travelled up and down ladders, along scaffolding, through arches of stone, and up and down sandy slopes in search of the last Fade Rift on their report. For the past three hours, they have been in a mine of some kind, walking round and round in circles. They seem no closer to finding it, though they have managed to end up at the site of a previously closed Rift on… multiple occasions.

There is sand in every crease and crevice of her armour, and her feet are blistering in her boots, but she refuses to order them to stop. The man needs to learn to lead, to command, if he’s going to be the face of the Inquisition as Leliana and Josephine are so keen on him becoming. And that includes admitting when he is wrong.

Solas tilts his head, exchanging a weary glance with her as she bites back all the nasty things she wants to say to their illustrious Herald.

Varric, on the other hand, has no such qualms.

“Let’s go back to that camp, kid. The one near the pool with the nice waterfalls. Take a load off and start fresh tomorrow.”

Trevelyan looks crestfallen, but she barely manages to feel sorry for him as he twists the map this way and that, peering down the tunnel they have managed to find themselves in.

Really, the amount of time that the scouts had spent at Haven teaching him how to read maps and follow a compass would clearly have been just as well spent having snowball fights or drinking in the tavern. Living in a Circle for half his life has left him with no sense of direction whatsoever.

She longs to pluck the map from his grasp and use it for herself, but after the number of times she had done so in the Hinterlands, and the Storm Coast, and the Hinterlands again… This is a small area, very small, compared to the others they have mapped so far, and he must be taught the lesson. Even if it does mean getting them all hopelessly sunburnt in the process.

“This way!” he says, his voice attempting to be steady and sure and only managing to be slightly less trembling than it had been before.

Solas gives her another weary glance, but they follow him.

It takes another hour, and two more wrong turnings after which they have to retrace their steps, to reach the edge of the pool once more. Though, from the surprised look on Trevelyan’s face, she is quite certain that their success is more serendipity than accomplishment.

Varric wastes no time in stripping off his boots and meagre armour and plunging into the cool water. Solas is a little more restrained, but he too removes his outer garment and the wraps around his feet before submerging himself beneath one of the waterfalls.

Trevelyan offers her an awkward smile that she refuses to return as he clumsily scoops up their companions’ discarded belongings.

“I’ll take these up to the camp.” He pauses, his mouth opening and closing somewhat like a fish.

“Out with it, whatever it is,” she tells him, trying not to snap and only barely succeeding.

He swallows heavily, the redness on his cheeks flaring with more than just sunburn. “Sorry, I just… I wanted to say that if you wanted to… to go in too, I don’t mind… That is to say, I would carry your armour back too, if you like. Or I can wait? Sorry.”

Though there is almost nothing she wants more than to strip to her smalls and bathe away the sand and heat, her temper gets the best of her.

“No, I will escort you back to the camp. Who knows what dangers could lurk in the sands?”

His face falls once more, though he tries to hide it with a nod.

They make the short walk back to the Oasis camp in silence. Once or twice, she thinks he is about to try and make conversation, but his courage fails him at the last moment. She can’t help but be grateful. They have spent half the day listening to Varric and Solas discussing the Dwarven economy, of all things, and her ears are still ringing from the prattle almost as much as her head is pounding from the harsh sun that has been beating down on her helm.

When they return, she leaves him to deal with the scouts, slipping inside her tent and rooting around in her bag. Before they had left for the Oasis, Vivienne had supplied her with a number of salves for sunburn and various other maladies that might befall them. At the time, she had been a little ungrateful, having travelled all over Thedas for decades without such things, but she cannot deny that she is appreciative of them now. She finds a small tin labelled for blisters, and a vial for sunburn, and puts them to one side while she removes the heavy layers of leather and chainmail armour that have kept her both safe and overheated all day. The relief is _tangible_ , but she knows it could feel better.

By the time she emerges from her tent, wearing only a light undershirt and her leggings, Trevelyan is deep in conversation with two of the scouts, the map spread out on the requisition table before them. An argument seems to be in progress, so she attempts to slip out of the camp quietly.

“Lady Pentaghast?” one of the scouts calls out to her.

Trying not to sound as resentful as she feels, she turns. “Yes?”

Trevelyan waves his hands dismissively. “Nothing!” And then, turning to the scout, “nothing. I can deal with this alone. I told you.”

Something in her tells her that she should ignore him, that she should stop and stay and take over the situation. But he is in the camp, he is with the scouts, and he needs to learn.

“Stay in the camp,” she tells him. “We will be back shortly.”

He nods, bowing his head slightly.

She leaves, a stab of guilt in the back of her mind competing with the headache that won’t go away. But she cannot baby him forever. So far, he has coasted on his legend and his name and his, frankly irritating, personality, but if the scouts do not respect him for his leadership, neither will the soldiers, or the Chantry, or the rest of Thedas, and then the Inquisition that she has worked so hard to build will crumble at their feet. She cannot allow that to happen.

When she returns to the pool, she finds Varric sunning himself, floating on his back in the shallow part of the water. Solas is still under the waterfall, his eyes closed in what could be calm contemplation, but she guesses might likely be sleep. She decides to leave them both to their diversions, sitting down on a convenient piece of masonry at the edge of the water.

With a wince she cannot be bothered to restrain, she pulls off her boots. As expected, her feet are red raw, the sand having seeped into her socks and rubbed the skin to ribbons in several places. With another wince, she dangles said feet into the pool, sighing heavily as the pain begins to ebb away.

“I can help you with those, if you like.”

Trevelyan’s voice behind her makes her jump, her foot kicking the water with such force that a nearby tusket bolts further into the pool, the spray of its wake half-drowning Varric, who sits up with a disgruntled yelp.

When she turns, Trevelyan looks frozen in fear, not sure whether to face up to his actions or flee the situation entirely.

“I told you to stay at the camp,” she grumbles.

He hangs his head for a moment. “Yes, but you also said that dangers lurk in the sands, and you didn’t bring your sword with you. I… I was worried.”

With an irritated sigh, she reaches over to her discarded boots, retrieving the two daggers that are sheathed within them and holding them up for his inspection. His eyes widen, and then he hangs his head again.

“Sorry. I should have known… You… Oh. Well, I could still help you with your feet, if you wanted. Prove that I’m not entirely useless?”

She holds up the tin that Vivienne had given her, which contains a salve and some bandages for her feet. “You are not _entirely_ useless,” she allows him. “But I am well-prepared. Do not waste your energy on me, when you should be using it to figure out the next steps we must take.”

He nods, still a little sheepish. “I really am sorry. If you change your mind, you’ll let me know?”

Though she has no intention of doing any such thing, she nods.

“I’ll… I’ll go back to the camp.”

For just a moment, he pauses, and she wonders whether he’s waiting for her to offer to escort him back to the camp, but then he turns and walks quickly away up the slope.

She lets out another irritated sigh once she is reasonably certain he is out of earshot, and then turns her attention to her blistered feet.

“I spy with my little eye...”

Varric’s voice is the next to disturb her peace, though, this time at least she doesn’t jump.

“No.”

“Oh, come now, Seeker. I'm just trying to be friendly.”

“Try to be _quiet_ , instead.”

“When you brought me along to talk? Perish the thought. Now, I spy with my little eye…”

He sits down on the stone block beside her, starting to massage his own, much larger, feet. She offers him the salve but he waves it away, rubbing a stem of fresh elfroot over his blisters instead.

This time she waits, but he doesn’t finish the line. She looks down at him, expectantly. “There is supposed to be a letter. How else am I to guess?”

He chuckles. “Oh, so now you _want_ to play? Fine, I suppose… I spy with my little eye, something beginning with… s.”

“Sand,” she guesses, given that it is the most abundant thing in sight.

He shakes his head. “No.”

“Sky?”

“No.”

“Sun?”

“No.”

She stares out at the surroundings. There are a great deal of trees in this area of the pool, but none that she can definitely say begin with an ‘s’. There is an Inquisition banner nearby…

“Standard?”

He shakes his head again.

“Stone?”

“No.”

“ _Sand_ stone?”

“No. Seeker, do you want a clue?”

She will _not_ be defeated by a children’s game. “No. Statue?”

“Where?”

There is a pair behind them; a masked figure holding a crown, and a woman holding a sword and shield. She points them out and he gives a low whistle.

“Huh. Thought they were columns. Didn’t look that far up. No. Not statue.”

“Salve?”

“No.”

“Stalactite?”

“You’re clutching at straws now, Seeker. Try something a little more obvious.”

Letting out a low huff, she glances around the pool, craning her head slightly so she can see the surrounding area from his perspective. Their elven companion comes into view, blocked from her own gaze behind a stone pillar.

“Solas?”

“Getting warmer.”

Frowning, she focuses on the area immediately surrounding him, but nothing jumps out at her. All she can see is the waterfall and the trees and the cliff behind him. If Varric turns out to be tricking her, using a word in Dwarven or some slang or other that she could not be expected to know, she is going to be most displeased.

“Sleeping?” she tries, thinking laterally.

Varric chuckles again. “Oh! No, but that would have been a good one. I’ll have to remember that for the next time we play. Not just nouns, include the verbs too.”

“Ugh. I am starting to be certain there will be no next time.”

“You’re overthinking it, Seeker. Come on. _I_ spy with _my_ little eye…”

Suddenly, it comes to her. What has been quite literally staring him in the face this entire time, that, by nature, she would not be able to see. With one smooth motion, she shoves him off the stone block. He laughs, spluttering a little as he gets to his feet.

“There you go, _Seeker_. You got it. Feeling better now?”

Irritatingly, she finds that she is.

Varric brushes himself off, looking around for his boots and belongings. “Hey, I don’t suppose you’ve seen…”

“Trevelyan took them back to camp.”

He smiles. “Good-hearted, that kid. Not very good with directions, but damn, if he wasn’t very good at _anything_ , not so long ago. He’ll learn, if we give him the chance.”

She grunts in agreement, turning her attention back to applying a little of Vivienne’s sunburn salve to her face and the back of her neck, leaning over to check her reflection in the pool below.

He pats her on the shoulder.

“Sun’s getting low. I’ll go round up Chuckles and then we’ll meet you back at the camp. Don’t take too long. I think there’s fennec on the menu tonight and you know how hungry the kid gets when he’s been out all day.”

She grunts again, and this time he leaves her be, tramping through the pool to collect their still sleeping companion.

After she has bathed herself, and the salves have had some time to work, she returns to the camp. As expected, dinner has been served already. There is a bowl waiting in the embers at the edge of the fire pit, which Trevelyan scoops up and hands to her as soon as she gets close enough, adding a rough hunk of bread and a little cheese from the communal platter too. When she sits, there is already a mug of wine by her stool.

He gives her a shy, apologetic smile, which again, she does not return, but he doesn’t speak again until after she has finished eating.

When he does, however…

“Do you want the good news, or the bad news?”

She narrows her eyes at him, as Varric chuckles beside her.

“Go on, kid, start with the bad, finish with the good. Always best to end on the high note.”

Trevelyan gives them all a nervous grin. “Well, the bad news is… we’ve been looking for the wrong Fade Rift. I’ve been _trying_ to mark them off as we close them, just as Scout Harding told me to, but… Well, I think I had the map upside down for a bit, and so much of this place looks so similar, I thought we were on the Solasan when we were actually at the Mining Camp. Then, I marked off the rift I thought was the right one, but… well… I don’t think it was. Tiss agrees, because she thinks the one that we were looking for today was actually that one at the bottom of the mineshaft that we closed the day before yesterday.” At this one of the scouts raises her hand, a little awkwardly, and waves at them with a half-hearted nod. “And… and… I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, everyone…” he trails off, twisting the hem of his shirt between his hands.

“And?” Solas prompts, his expression grave.

“ _And_ ,” Trevelyan continues, “I’m not altogether certain which one it is then, that we were missing. Or, if, indeed, we actually _are_ missing one. Because, well, I may have… that is to say, I got a little confused, and I might have… I forgot what some of the symbols actually meant. Tiss has written a key for me now, so I shouldn’t do that anymore.” He turns the map, showing a roughly sketched list of pictures and labels. “But… well. I also might have got a little distracted when we were searching for that lady’s cache? Because I thought that was in the mining camp, and Tiss tells me that cave was actually on the Stratos. So… that’s how it is.”

Her transitory peace shatters with his frantic confession. Spoilt, sheltered, Circle Mage.

She wants to scream.

Loudly.

Repeatedly.

She would also settle for strangling the living daylights out of their Herald with her bare hands, although that would likely have far greater and more dire consequences than she is willing to endure.

“What is the _good_ news?” she asks, through gritted teeth, already imagining the miles they will have to trek the following day to retrace their steps and make sure that not only the Fade Rifts, but the landmarks and other points of interest that they have ticked off in the past three days have all been recorded correctly.

Trevelyan’s face brightens like the sun.

“The good news is… we’re not lost any more!”

Ugh.

**Author's Note:**

> Just to keep you in the loop, my plan is to post a fic every Friday from now until the New Year (which includes Christmas Day and New Year's Day!!) and then dial back a little in 2021 (to maybe every other week?). I have a couple of longer fics in the works that I started during NaNo, which are going to need a bit more attention than I'm used to. But I have SO many ideas, you would not believe it. Trust me that this series is nowhere near over yet. ♥
> 
> But I hope you enjoyed this one, and I hope you enjoy the rest of the fics this year. ♥


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